Protecting His Assets (7 page)

But there was baked ziti buried in enough cheese to frighten a cow, so hey, it wasn’t all bad.

As if trying to make small talk with a table of chatty octogenarians wasn’t amusing enough, once the ladies realized Chase was the famous Deuce Dixon, they wouldn’t let him out of their sight. How so many of them were so well-versed in baseball, Summer had no clue. After making Chase show off a few of his tattoos, along with engaging in some serious bicep-petting that made Chase blush and Summer giggle, the women then convinced their new friends to sit through a spirited game of bingo.

Make that
five
spirited games. The bright side? Summer won sixty-three bucks, split with two other women.

“This’ll buy my ice cream for the night.” Summer folded the bills into her wallet while she and Chase finally made their way to his Escalade. After tucking her wallet into her purse, she dug out her cell phone and breathed a sigh of relief that Kyle hadn’t called again. Her banjo-slash-guitar-slash-keyboard player had been certain she’d been abducted last night, though that hadn’t stopped him from returning home to the suburbs of Yardley and leaving her in the city. “This is perfect timing,” she added, ignoring Chase’s usual silence. “We have enough time to get back upstate before my shift at Triple Scoop tonight.”

“It’s fucking November.” Chase took care of her door for her, then rounded the hood and got in on the driver’s side. He shook his head as he started the engine. “Will you try harder to convince my crazy sister that no self-respecting New Yorker wants to eat ice cream in the freaking winter? Every other place closes in October except Cass’s.”

“Cass is a savvy entrepreneur,” Summer said primly, snapping her belt into place. Suppressing a shiver, she reached over to turn up the heater. Chase beat her to it.

“See my point?” He jutted his chin at her before backing out of the lot. “You’re freezing. Would you really want to eat ice cream right now?”

She couldn’t stop her laughter as she cast him a sideways glance. “I would if I could have one of Cass’s new
special
creations.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Cass and I brainstormed some ways to keep traffic coming into the shop even when it’s cold outside. We decided one way is to keep people…coming.”

For a long moment there was nothing but silence in the swiftly warming cabin of Chase’s truck. Then he exploded. “
What
?”

“Easy. It’s not as bad as it sounds. We’re selling some fun new erotic blends of heated sauce to go with the ice cream. You know Cass is a wizard in the kitchen, and she’s touting these herbal enhancements she’s added to her toppings. And oh my God, the raspberry-mocha-white-chocolate fudge? Spontaneous orgasm in a cup, I swear.” She noted Chase’s suddenly constricted expression and flashed a wide grin. “Oops, sorry. Are we little women not supposed to admit we think about sex as much as guys?”

“You just left church,” he said under his breath.

“What does that have to do with my vagina?”

He reached up to scratch his face, drawing her attention to the sharp right angle of his jaw and that soft-looking scruff that made her want to rub her cheek against his skin. “Your vagina was never invited into this conversation. Please exit stage left.”

Laughing, she rested her forehead against the cool window to try to reduce the certain flush in her cheeks. She could toss around innuendoes—or straight out dirty talk—with the best of ’em, but that didn’t mean she could do it without blushing.

“Cass may be your sister, but she’s still an adult with an active sex life. Besides—” she paused to give him time to sputter through the breath he couldn’t seem to exhale, “—this isn’t about Cass’s sex life or mine. We’re trying different things to drum up business. And let me tell you, the Power Potions and Delectable Delights are working. On weekend nights, we sell those sauces by the vat. No joke.”

“Nipple clamps optional?” he muttered.

She tapped her chin, pretending to think. “You know, now that you mention it, maybe we could—”

“Your mother would be shocked.”

Summer’s good humor faded. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“Neither did your vagina, but you didn’t hesitate to throw that in here.”

She crossed her arms and stared out the windshield at the gloomy afternoon. The slate sky looked like it would start spitting snow at any moment. Crisscrossing lights from the oncoming traffic flashed over Chase’s face, highlighting the steely set to his mouth. Twilight came early to New York this time of year, and this one was being helped along by the forecast of flurries overnight.

And she was in sitting in Hottie McHotterson’s truck after a shockingly enjoyable day spent with him at church and bingo, arguing about erotic chocolate sauce, her vagina and her mother.

Beyond bizarre.

“People don’t just eat the sauce,” she added softly, not sure why she was enjoying goading him quite so much.

They’d never had an adversarial relationship before. Mostly he’d ignored her. When and if he’d taken notice of her existence, it was mainly as his kid sister’s mouthy little friend, the one who always got her gum stuck in her hair—she’d left her unfortunate bubble-popping habit behind in high school—and always had some random statistic to fling at him when he was washing his car during that completely
un
-fateful summer they were neighbors.

He’d been a boy on the verge of manhood and quite eager to demonstrate it by losing his shirt, and she’d been an awkward eleven-year-old wearing a maxi pad the size of the morning newspaper and trying to figure out why he caused such weird fluttering sensations in the pit of her stomach.

Surprisingly, early menstrual periods did not bring with them any bursts of knowledge on the opposite sex or clues what to do with the sudden influx of hormones that had swarmed her body seemingly overnight. She’d gone to bed one evening thinking of Chase just as Cass’s older brother. She’d woken up wondering if she’d really caught him with his hand down his cargo shorts when she’d spotted him lying in a lawn chair beside his parents’ pool.

And if so, had he been enjoying himself? And could she watch?

“Did you masturbate when you were lying next to your parents’ pool?” she asked, biting her lip when he wrenched off the radio.

“Excuse me?”

She tucked her hair behind her ears and blew out a breath.
Open mouth, insert both feet.
“The summer after I moved in next door…I saw you lying out one morning. No one was up yet but me. And you. I didn’t realize it was you in the chair and not Cass until I was in your yard.”

“Yeah, we look an awful lot alike.” Sarcasm laced his words as he hung one of his super-sized wrists over the wheel. “Her long red hair was so similar to my short blond.”

“You had a ball cap on,” Summer protested. “I couldn’t tell for sure from behind, not until I—”

“What?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t get that close.” Despite their privacy in the truck, she found herself lowering her voice. The memory was too vivid and intimate. “But I swear I saw your hand slip inside your shorts. It didn’t come back out for a while. I couldn’t see your face, but your hand was moving.” She adjusted her skirt and hoped he couldn’t hear her unsteady breathing. “I figured you had an itch.” His bark of laughter made her whip her head in his direction. “Hey, I was eleven. I’d never seen that before.”

“Sounds like you didn’t even see it then, since you weren’t paying close enough attention.”

“You were my elder,” she said faintly, then felt like a complete dumbass when he turned piercing dark eyes her way and pinned her in place with the force of his stare. It was like being hit with a virtual baseball bat right to the forehead.

“Remember that, slugger.”

He didn’t speak again until they were at the Yardley city limits. They’d stopped for a quick dinner of roast beef sandwiches, fries and coke floats, which she slurped loudly every few moments. Each time he glanced at her, obviously amused, and said nothing.

It was really sort of creepy.

When he did decide to talk, she couldn’t say she appreciated his choice of topic. “How long have you been performing in the city?”

She gripped her plastic cup tighter. “A while.”

“Months? Years?”

Why did she feel as if she’d been caught, well, watching him touch himself? Singing for money wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. So far it hadn’t been much money, and she certainly didn’t have oodles of fans, but things were improving. Like any business, building an audience took time.

“It’s been under a year since I had my first show in a coffeehouse in Queens. But I did some gigs up north first. Way up north.”

“Lake Placid? Plattsburg? Buffalo?”

“Canada.” Lowering her head, she sucked hard on her straw to avoid his death glare. “It’s really not that far away in the scheme of things.”

“Maybe not, but it is a foreign country.”

“Well, yes, technically.”

He cursed colorfully under his breath. “You said Cass didn’t know you were singing. Have you told anyone?”

“No.” She bit her straw. “Not yet.”

His swearing rose half a decibel. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been doing shows in strange places—and other countries—with no personal security and without even telling people where you are?”

Silently, she nodded, still not looking at him.

“Dammit, you know better. You’re not stupid. Your mom raised you so well all those years, making sure you were protected, and the minute she’s gone you run off half-cocked to—”

“To live?” she shouted back, slamming her empty cup in the holder. “She shoved me under a glass lid, then she decided she needed to experience the world and what the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t know how to be free. I’d been in a box all those years, and when she left, I couldn’t figure out how to deal. So I did what I always do when I can’t handle life. I sing.”

God, didn’t that sound pathetically quaint. Meek little church girl, needing to lose herself in lyrics she had no right to be singing. What did she know about love? She’d never experienced it. Sex, yes, that she knew, in limited, disinteresting quantities. She’d had boyfriends, done the whole looking for love in all the guess-they’re-good-enough places. But that was a poor substitute for a lasting relationship built on something real. Assuming such a thing existed.

“I get that,” he said quietly, sending her train of thought headfirst into a wall. He flipped on his turn signal and coasted through the center of their small town—
her
small town, since apparently he didn’t live in Yardley anymore. The severity of his expression seemed even more poignant when illuminated by the watery flicker of streetlights. “That’s why I play ball. To get out of my head. It makes me more than I am. And less, if that makes sense.”

“Yes.” A whisper was all she could get out; her throat was so tight.

“That doesn’t mean you can risk your safety. Freedom must look awfully alluring when you’ve been cooped up in a small town all your life. I get that.”

“You would, since you left too.”

“Yeah. I did. I didn’t want to come back either.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, his weariness evident in every strained movement. “Look, I don’t want to clip your wings. You’re old enough to live your life the way you need to. I respect that. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep your secret from my sister or look the other way when I know you could get hurt. That’s not me. If your mother were around, she’d skin my ass if I didn’t step in.”

“There’s nothing for you to do. You said it yourself. This is my life, my decision.” She hated that she was practically pleading, but she had to fight for her dreams. She’d be damned—full curse intended in this case—if she let him take them away under the guise of friendship. “My next show is scheduled in two weeks in a much safer area of Brooklyn. I’ve been there a million times and nothing will happen, I promise.”

He pulled to a stop in front of the small house she’d lived in since she was ten, next door to the family home where Cass still lived. It was a way they each had hung onto slices of their childhood even when the world had been spinning wildly out of control. Silly, maybe. Childish probably. She didn’t care.

Sometimes comfort and security came in odd forms, and she and Cass had snatched onto theirs with both hands.

“Nothing will happen,” Chase agreed, staring straight ahead while his truck idled at the curb. She was afraid to move and startle him out of the semi-trance he’d dropped into. She could almost hear the
but
hanging in the air.

When she didn’t reply, he swung his gaze to hers. “You’ll be safe, all right, because I’m going to be there too.” Her lips parted on a wheeze of breath. “If you intend on playing bigger venues and keeping your whereabouts a secret from those who love you, you need personal security. And right now I’m the only man I trust you with.”

He slammed out of the vehicle before she managed to shut her mouth.

Chapter Four

Chase stewed about the situation throughout the weekend and into the following week. It wasn’t as if he had a ton of other things on his plate at the moment, other than going to the occasional AA meeting. Once in a while—not often enough lately—he even went inside rather than returning to his truck. He hadn’t found the right group in the city yet, that was all. Then there were the oh-so-thrilling doctors’ visits and PT and lots of hours spent doing research on his condition online. He didn’t want to have surgery, but more and more it looked like he’d have no choice.